Officials warned of 'systemic' corruption

By Deborah Snow, Linton Besser

20 March 2013 — 3:00am

The shock arrest of four customs officers since late last year for alleged collaboration with a crime ring importing illicit drugs through Sydney Airport would have come as no surprise to senior members of the Customs and Border Protection Service.

Files released to Fairfax Media under freedom-of-information laws logging more than 700 allegations of staff wrongdoing between 2007-08 and 2009-10 are saturated with references to bribery, corruption and suspected associations with crime figures or motorcycle gangs. It is, as one file note says, a ''systemic issue''.

What the files reveal.

Last month, in evidence before a Senate committee, customs chief executive Mike Pezzullo warned senators that the worst was not over and that more officers would be arrested in the months ahead.

He admitted that internal investigators had been severely under-resourced for years, with only a handful of internal affairs officers to monitor thousands of staff until mid-2007.

The investigation summaries reveal repeated references to officers under suspicion for links with crime syndicates or bikie gangs - the latter referred to as OMCGs or Outlaw Motor Cycle Gangs.

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In one case, the files allege an officer helped import monkeys, snakes and lizards ''allegedly being handed from … [the] Customs and Border Protection officer to OMCG members in the car park of Sydney international airport''.

Another was ''allegedly assisting an Italian organised crime syndicate'' while a third was suspected of tapping into computer systems and passing on intelligence to drug traffickers and Asian crime syndicates.

While this man had resigned by 2009 before formal action could be taken, the files warn ''concerns still exist into what his activities were prior to his resignation and what threat he still poses to the border''.

In 2009, an informer wanted money to unmask five customs officers allegedly working with illegal tobacco importers. The file notes a government agency would ''run'' the mole as an informant but all further details are suppressed.

An officer suspected of assisting tobacco scams comes to attention in NSW for ''a transhipment entry for a container later found to contain approximate (sic) 6 million sticks of counterfeit cigarettes''. Audit data suggests she ''accessed a suspect container some days before it was selected for an X-ray examination''.

Reports of bribery or attempted bribery were another constant headache for investigators. In 2008, one officer was offered $80,000 for help with importing ''precursors'', the raw ingredients from which illegal drugs sold on the street are made.

Another was caught allegedly asking a bank teller how to deposit a large sum of cash without the money being reported. Several amounts of $9900 went into his account - each deposit just shy of the $10,000 threshold for mandatory reporting of financial transactions.